Obedience to God

[James Brown]

Compare and contrast.

God tells one man to kill his offspring, which he tries to do, and he's arrested for attempted murder.

God tells another man to kill his offspring, which he tries to do, and the man is praised for his obedience.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Elmer Fudd gets knocked on the head, loses his memory. Bugs convinces him that Elmer is Carmen Miranda. He gets knocked on the head, and is fully restored.

Joe Schmo gets knocked on the head, loses his memory. Bubba Schmo, as a concerned sibling, knocks him on the head with a shovel because 'it worked for Bugs Bunny.' Services will be held on Sunday.

 

[Lion IRC]

"Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering?"

It's as if Abraham knows that Isaac is destined to go on and have an innumerable number of grand kids

 

[Tom Sawyer]

"Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering?"

It's as if Abraham knows that Isaac is destined to go on and have an innumerable number of grand kids

Well … what's the point of the story then?

I always read it as being that obedience to God's commands is the number one thing. Even if he asks you to do something that your own judgement would consider to be wrong, like killing your child, you should obey the commands of God because he knows better than you.

If that is not the case and Abraham knew that God would stop him before he killed Isaac (and God, I assume, knew that Abraham was aware of this), then what was going on here? There wouldn't appear to be any moral lesson or any real point at all.

 

[Jobar]

http://www.jesusandmo.net/comic/dodgy/

 

[Random Person]

It seems to me you're going to end up being obedient to something. It's a good idea to choose carefully.

 

[James Brown]

Gen 22:12 "...now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."

Maybe Abraham was in on the joke the whole time. But God certainly seemed pleased that he was going to go through with it.

And as for "innumerable number of grand kids", the author of Hebrews (11:19) speculated that Abraham believed in the resurrection of Isaac. How else could Abraham reconcile the promise of multiple descendants with the order to kill off his offspring? Personally, I'm skeptical of that solution, as the notion of resurrection was unheard of in Abraham's era. There's nothing in the book of Genesis to suggest that Abraham believed that God could raise his son from the dead. But it does ease qualms about how a man could commit murder just because a voice in his head told him so.

- - - Updated - - -

It seems to me you're going to end up being obedient to something. It's a good idea to choose carefully.

Very true.

Do you believe that Leslie Kelly made a good choice? How about Andrea Yates?

 

[ideologyhunter]

Well, as we learn in the Book of Job, if God kills all your kids, you can get replacements that are just as good. Lose 8 kids? Get 8 kids!! Now that's a happy and holy ending.

 

[James Brown]

Well, as we learn in the Book of Job, if God kills all your kids, you can get replacements that are just as good. Lose 8 kids? Get 8 kids!! Now that's a happy and holy ending.

Yes. For the sake of my son, I hope that God never thinks of me as "a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil".

 

[Lion IRC]

Well, as we learn in the Book of Job, if God kills all your kids, you can get replacements that are just as good. Lose 8 kids? Get 8 kids!! Now that's a happy and holy ending.

God didn't kill Job's kids. What are you talking about?
And Abraham didn't sacrifice his son.
Does anyone have a good bible example? There's heaps. Try harder.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Well, as we learn in the Book of Job, if God kills all your kids, you can get replacements that are just as good. Lose 8 kids? Get 8 kids!! Now that's a happy and holy ending.

God didn't kill Job's kids. What are you talking about?
And Abraham didn't sacrifice his son.
Does anyone have a good bible example? There's heaps. Try harder.

....

And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. Job 1:12a

While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house: And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. Job 1:18-19

....

God unleashed Satan on Job's sons and daughters.

 

[Random Person]

I wonder why Christians don't kill their children very often? Did they not read the Scripture that says you are supposed to?


Have you ever noticed how glib many atheists are about the death of children?

 

[Lion IRC]

God unleashed Satan on Job's sons and daughters.

Well if you're gonna blame God for every omission to act, someone got eaten by a shark the other day.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It's as if Abraham knows that Isaac is destined to go on and have an innumerable number of grand kids[/URL]

Meaningless.
Story after story, prophecies are given that come true, sort of, but only make sense in retrospect.

Being promised to have oodles of grandkids could just mean he's going to marry into a big family some day. No guarantee that things will at all work out as expected.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

God unleashed Satan on Job's sons and daughters.

Well if you're gonna blame God for every omission to act, someone got eaten by a shark the other day.

Not a real answer, is it? No, the subject was Job and his dead children. Playthings for God and Satan with God's permission. Callous and uncaring.

 

[Rhea]

"Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering?"

It's as if Abraham knows that Isaac is destined to go on and have an innumerable number of grand kids

You Christians are so funny with your insistence on taking a passage and pretending it means something completely different from what it says. I mean, I know why you do that; because you are rightly repelled by what it actually says. That God wants to know if Abraham is actually willing to murder his son to prove his obedience. I get that. We're all repelled by that. But it is clearly what the passage says. And you can't pretend it doesn't. You can lie to yourself. You can believe your lie. But the passage still clearly says that Yahweh wanted Abraham to prove he was actually willing to murder his son to prove his obedience.

And nothing in Gen15:5 says that it is Isaac who will father the multitudes (LOL in 4 generations). Nothing Yahweh said could make Abraham believe that was a guarantee about Isaac. But you need to think that to successfully lie to yourself that this passage is not abhorrent.

But it says what it says.

Genesis 22 New International Version (NIV)
Abraham Tested
22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed,[c] because you have obeyed me.”

19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba

The passage requires that Abraham was ready willing and trying to murder his own son to prove obedience. Yahweh would have known if he was hedging. Yahweh would have known if he was not sincere.

And as Keith says, without this, the story has no point.

 

[Lion IRC]

I don't contend that Abraham was unwilling.
I am saying he believed - trusted - God would NOT take Isaac from him.

Sheesh!
It's like you people have never been on one of those corporate team-building events.

"A trust fall is a purported trust-building game often conducted as a group exercise in which a person deliberately allows themselves to fall, relying on the other members of the group (spotters) to catch the person."

Keith&Co probably thinks this trust experiment is pointless unless someone gets dropped every now and then.

 

[James Brown]

Why was Leslie Kelly arrested? Did he not trust in God, too?

 

[Lion IRC]

Jesus got arrested.

 

[braces_for_impact]

"Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering?"

It's as if Abraham knows that Isaac is destined to go on and have an innumerable number of grand kids

Irrelevant. The Isaac story and the Christian defense of it has always struck me as morally indefensible, and watching Christians try only reinforces this point.

Imagine you are Isaac. You're about to leave to make the sacrifice, and you ask your father where the sacrifice is. He tells you not to worry about it, now here, carry all this kindling. Later you are tied to the alter, flammable liquid is poured upon you. You've seen this happen to numerous animals, you know what it looks like, what happens. How the animal struggles to breathe for a time. How it burns in the fire. The look in the animals eyes. Your gaze moves up. There stands your father, you know this man, his devotion, his faith, he will do it. He also, has a look in his eyes. The knife moves up, his muscles tense...

"Just kidding!"

Cruel. Inhumane. Your belief is much like Abraham's. You will reinterpret the verses so your god isn't an immoral, barbaric monster, because by today's standards that is what he is. So you have need to find a way around it, because you have superior morals to the god you worship.